Are upper middle class family gatherings now just luxury travel pissing contests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bragging and humblebragging in social situations is annoying, yes, but what’s even worse is when someone finishes their amusing anecdote, everyone politely laughs, and then…silence. It’s excruciating. I’m actually relieved when someone immediately fills the dead air with oneupmanship.

What you call bragging is seriously just conversation to some of us. We all talk about where we went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bragging and humblebragging in social situations is annoying, yes, but what’s even worse is when someone finishes their amusing anecdote, everyone politely laughs, and then…silence. It’s excruciating. I’m actually relieved when someone immediately fills the dead air with oneupmanship.

What you call bragging is seriously just conversation to some of us. We all talk about where we went.

FWIW I like the bragging because it fills the dead air, which is far worse.

[Anonymous]

Bragging is horribly uncouth. Finding bragging to be grating does not mean one is envious (not jealous as you all keep misstating) it just means that one was raised with proper manners. Bragging is vulgar. Declaring your brag to be “just conversation” doesn’t make it so.

But ill-mannered individuals rarely possess that self awareness. Donald Trump comes to mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bragging and humblebragging in social situations is annoying, yes, but what’s even worse is when someone finishes their amusing anecdote, everyone politely laughs, and then…silence. It’s excruciating. I’m actually relieved when someone immediately fills the dead air with oneupmanship.

[i]What you call bragging is seriously just conversation to some of us. [b]We all talk about where we went.

DP. That’s not a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t see a difference between going to a four seasons in Florida and a trip to Thailand, the conversation can’t go far.

We get it, you need to take a long flight and have a bunch of poor brown de facto slaves at your beck and call to feel like a real big shot when you recount your decadent life of culture.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I always thought travel was a safe topic. I love to travel. I love to hear my friend’s travel stories. I don’t enjoy hearing about boring beach trips to bald island but I love hearing about Asia or Europe. I’m always looking for new places to go with my family.

Talking about cool sites you saw in Asia is fine. "Humble" bragging about your $1k+/night hotel or dropping a reference to (or worse posting a picture of) your lay flat seats is not.

Pp here. I know what you mean when people are trying to show off. We actually do stay at the 1-2k hotels but I don’t talk about the hotel. There are some people who who can appreciate a nice spa or afternoon tea though. Maybe that is what OP is referring to. 95% of the time I would not talk about this but there are those 5% where I actually really enjoy the details of a very nice hotel, especially if the hotel is the destination. We recently went to marina bay sands in Singapore. My kids loved the hotel and the adjacent attractions.

Any comment remotely like this is exactly what OP is talking about.

+1. But I do like that PP distilled how superficial global travel has become: 20+ hour flight each way to be pampered at a luxury hotel. The same experience is available at any nearby Ritz or Four Seasons, but that wouldn’t be “exotic” enough or brag worthy at the next social gathering.

Similar to “low key” braggarts who travel to third world dumps half way around the world so they can boast about hiking there. You can do all the world class hiking you want in West Virginia, but Appalachia isn’t exotic for them, of course.

This nails it. I get so bored of hearing about people's luxury hotel experiences in far flung places.

Now someone who stayed in budget chain hotel but then found a loophole that enabled them to use the pool at the 5 star resort down the street? That sounds like a fun story! Also happy to hear about weird and offbeat AirBnBs or the funky bed and breakfast you stayed in that was great except the hosts ate breakfast with you and you had to make small talk with your high school French to comical effect.

If your travel stories are all "we had lie flat beds on the plane and our suite had it's own lap pool and we ate at these three michelin starred restaurants," you are boring and I don't to talk to you. You may also be rich (or just very deeply in debt or have wealthy parents) but that doesn't make you interesting.

I don’t know anyone who would talk about their first class plane experience as their vacation description. I’m a foodie and love hearing about amazing meals whether they are Michelin restaurants or hole in the walls. You sound like you know crappy people.

I would not want to hear about sneaking into a hotel pool. That doesn’t sound appealing at all. Shrug.

It is extremely common for UMC and wealthy people to recount vacations but describing their flight, their hotel, and then list the expensive restaurants they visited and the designer items they bought. This is literally the premise of this thread. If you don't know people like this then you are not familiar with this demographic. This is how 90% of the parents at my kid's private school talk.

Travel bragging has infected all conversations. Even classy and modest family members you don’t think of as braggers do it. It’s a social phenomenon triggering people’s FOMO and status anxiety. If travel comes up, everyone has to chime in to let the rest of the room know they are spendthrifts who take indulgent holidays too!

[Anonymous]

Ok so explain to us. In what context, if ever, are we allowed to mention travel such that it won’t be considered bragging?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I always thought travel was a safe topic. I love to travel. I love to hear my friend’s travel stories. I don’t enjoy hearing about boring beach trips to bald island but I love hearing about Asia or Europe. I’m always looking for new places to go with my family.

Talking about cool sites you saw in Asia is fine. "Humble" bragging about your $1k+/night hotel or dropping a reference to (or worse posting a picture of) your lay flat seats is not.

Pp here. I know what you mean when people are trying to show off. We actually do stay at the 1-2k hotels but I don’t talk about the hotel. There are some people who who can appreciate a nice spa or afternoon tea though. Maybe that is what OP is referring to. 95% of the time I would not talk about this but there are those 5% where I actually really enjoy the details of a very nice hotel, especially if the hotel is the destination. We recently went to marina bay sands in Singapore. My kids loved the hotel and the adjacent attractions.

Any comment remotely like this is exactly what OP is talking about.

+1. But I do like that PP distilled how superficial global travel has become: 20+ hour flight each way to be pampered at a luxury hotel. The same experience is available at any nearby Ritz or Four Seasons, but that wouldn’t be “exotic” enough or brag worthy at the next social gathering.

Similar to “low key” braggarts who travel to third world dumps half way around the world so they can boast about hiking there. You can do all the world class hiking you want in West Virginia, but Appalachia isn’t exotic for them, of course.

This nails it. I get so bored of hearing about people's luxury hotel experiences in far flung places.

Now someone who stayed in budget chain hotel but then found a loophole that enabled them to use the pool at the 5 star resort down the street? That sounds like a fun story! Also happy to hear about weird and offbeat AirBnBs or the funky bed and breakfast you stayed in that was great except the hosts ate breakfast with you and you had to make small talk with your high school French to comical effect.

If your travel stories are all "we had lie flat beds on the plane and our suite had it's own lap pool and we ate at these three michelin starred restaurants," you are boring and I don't to talk to you. You may also be rich (or just very deeply in debt or have wealthy parents) but that doesn't make you interesting.

I don’t know anyone who would talk about their first class plane experience as their vacation description. I’m a foodie and love hearing about amazing meals whether they are Michelin restaurants or hole in the walls. You sound like you know crappy people.

I would not want to hear about sneaking into a hotel pool. That doesn’t sound appealing at all. Shrug.

It is extremely common for UMC and wealthy people to recount vacations but describing their flight, their hotel, and then list the expensive restaurants they visited and the designer items they bought. This is literally the premise of this thread. If you don't know people like this then you are not familiar with this demographic. This is how 90% of the parents at my kid's private school talk.

Travel bragging has infected all conversations. Even classy and modest family members you don’t think of as braggers do it. It’s a social phenomenon triggering people’s FOMO and status anxiety. If travel comes up, everyone has to chime in to let the rest of the room know they are spendthrifts who take indulgent holidays too!

No. “Everyone” does not do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok so explain to us. In what context, if ever, are we allowed to mention travel such that it won’t be considered bragging?

If someone directly asks you, “so did you travel this summer?” you can respond with where you went. If they ask follow up questions, you may answer.

It’s that simple. If no one asks, don’t bring it up and definitely do not post on social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t see a difference between going to a four seasons in Florida and a trip to Thailand, the conversation can’t go far.

We get it, you need to take a long flight and have a bunch of poor brown de facto slaves at your beck and call to feel like a real big shot when you recount your decadent life of culture.

I don’t even know this became about Thailand. I went to Thailand 20 years ago before I was married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok so explain to us. In what context, if ever, are we allowed to mention travel such that it won’t be considered bragging?

If someone directly asks you, “so did you travel this summer?” you can respond with where you went. If they ask follow up questions, you may answer.

It’s that simple. If no one asks, don’t bring it up and definitely do not post on social media.

Thanks, good to know. That is exactly what I do and in my circle, friends DO ask and I ask them. Hence we have a conversation about travel. I expect this is also how this works for most of the PPs on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok so explain to us. In what context, if ever, are we allowed to mention travel such that it won’t be considered bragging?

If someone directly asks you, “so did you travel this summer?” you can respond with where you went. If they ask follow up questions, you may answer.

It’s that simple. If no one asks, don’t bring it up and definitely do not post on social media.

Thanks, good to know. That is exactly what I do and in my circle, friends DO ask and I ask them. Hence we have a conversation about travel. I expect this is also how this works for most of the PPs on here.

Then OP isn’t talking about you. If you truly can’t picture what OP is talking about, consider yourself lucky. I can picture what she means perfectly and have several real life examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always thought travel was a safe topic. I love to travel. I love to hear my friend’s travel stories. I don’t enjoy hearing about boring beach trips to bald island but I love hearing about Asia or Europe. I’m always looking for new places to go with my family.

Talking about cool sites you saw in Asia is fine. "Humble" bragging about your $1k+/night hotel or dropping a reference to (or worse posting a picture of) your lay flat seats is not.

Pp here. I know what you mean when people are trying to show off. We actually do stay at the 1-2k hotels but I don’t talk about the hotel. There are some people who who can appreciate a nice spa or afternoon tea though. Maybe that is what OP is referring to. 95% of the time I would not talk about this but there are those 5% where I actually really enjoy the details of a very nice hotel, especially if the hotel is the destination. We recently went to marina bay sands in Singapore. My kids loved the hotel and the adjacent attractions.

Any comment remotely like this is exactly what OP is talking about.

+1. But I do like that PP distilled how superficial global travel has become: 20+ hour flight each way to be pampered at a luxury hotel. The same experience is available at any nearby Ritz or Four Seasons, but that wouldn’t be “exotic” enough or brag worthy at the next social gathering.

Similar to “low key” braggarts who travel to third world dumps half way around the world so they can boast about hiking there. You can do all the world class hiking you want in West Virginia, but Appalachia isn’t exotic for them, of course.

This nails it. I get so bored of hearing about people's luxury hotel experiences in far flung places.

Now someone who stayed in budget chain hotel but then found a loophole that enabled them to use the pool at the 5 star resort down the street? That sounds like a fun story! Also happy to hear about weird and offbeat AirBnBs or the funky bed and breakfast you stayed in that was great except the hosts ate breakfast with you and you had to make small talk with your high school French to comical effect.

If your travel stories are all "we had lie flat beds on the plane and our suite had it's own lap pool and we ate at these three michelin starred restaurants," you are boring and I don't to talk to you. You may also be rich (or just very deeply in debt or have wealthy parents) but that doesn't make you interesting.

I don’t know anyone who would talk about their first class plane experience as their vacation description. I’m a foodie and love hearing about amazing meals whether they are Michelin restaurants or hole in the walls. You sound like you know crappy people.

I would not want to hear about sneaking into a hotel pool. That doesn’t sound appealing at all. Shrug.

It is extremely common for UMC and wealthy people to recount vacations but describing their flight, their hotel, and then list the expensive restaurants they visited and the designer items they bought. This is literally the premise of this thread. If you don't know people like this then you are not familiar with this demographic. This is how 90% of the parents at my kid's private school talk.

My kid also goes to private school. We go on 2-3 trips per year, including at least one international trip.

We don’t talk that way and don’t know anyone who does.

We went to French Polynesia. Lots of people asked us about it. We talked about the wildlife we saw, the culture, etc. our hotels and plane flight never came up.

I’m so thankful I don’t have to feign interest in your trip to French Polynesia. You are exactly who we are talking about, you just can’t see it.

Oh stop it. People proactively asked about it. We had all shared our summer plans in June.

Then in September, several people asked how our trip was and asked to see pictures. We didn’t bring it up.

Np. Gonna let you in on a secret. No one wants to see those pics

Can you read? They ASKED to see pictures.

They asked to see pics to be polite and bc they could tell how anxious you were to show those pics. Vacation pics are boring to other people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bragging is horribly uncouth. Finding bragging to be grating does not mean one is envious (not jealous as you all keep misstating) it just means that one was raised with proper manners. Bragging is vulgar. Declaring your brag to be “just conversation” doesn’t make it so.

But ill-mannered individuals rarely possess that self awareness. Donald Trump comes to mind.

Thank you, finally a poster with some common sense and tact

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok so explain to us. In what context, if ever, are we allowed to mention travel such that it won’t be considered bragging?

If someone directly asks you, “so did you travel this summer?” you can respond with where you went. If they ask follow up questions, you may answer.

It’s that simple. If no one asks, don’t bring it up and definitely do not post on social media.

The people who are first to ask only ask because to tee up bragging about their own travels. I just find it all very boring and thirsty. All of the stories sound the same.